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发表于 2004-7-26 05:11:32 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览
写Issue235的时候我用到了邪教的例子,所以在网络上查找了资料。很多XDJM苦于找不到它们的英文拼写,现在分享如下:)

资料转载自http://www.cass.net.cn/zhuanti/xiejiao_1/8xie/


应当无排名顺序吧!

1.丧心病狂的“奥姆真理”(Aum Supreme Truth)

    在科学技术十分发达的今天,在世界各地却活动着各种反科学、反社会的邪教组织。日本的奥姆真理教就是其中之一。该邪教组织于1995年3月20日在日本东京地铁投放“沙林”毒气,造成5500多人受伤,10多人死亡,震惊了全世界,它也因此更加臭名昭著。

2.诡秘幽暗的“太阳圣殿教”(The Order of the Solar Temple)

       太阳圣殿教,又名“国际太阳圣传骑士团”、“玫瑰与十字会”,成立于1984年,主要领导人是教主吕克·茹雷和幕后智囊约瑟夫·迪·马布罗。太阳圣殿教的成员散布于法国、西班牙、瑞士、加拿大、比利时、荷兰、丹麦、马丁尼克岛等国家和地区,共有约1000余人。该教集迷信、魔术、占星术于一体,是东方神秘主义、新纳粹神秘学和玫瑰十字象征主义杂糅而成的怪胎。自1994年以来,在加拿大、法国、瑞士先后发生多次太阳圣殿教教徒集体死亡事件,总共有70余人死于非命,全世界为之震惊。

3.摧残青少年的“上帝之子”(Children of God)

    “上帝之子”,是流窜在美国和世界不少地方的一个美国邪教组织,由其创始人大卫·B·伯格(也称摩西·大卫·伯格)在1968年创立。这个邪教组织专门宣扬性乱和世界末日论,并认为唯有该组织是真正的基督教组织,其他组织都是假的。在1986年,该组织改名为“家庭”或“爱情之家”。此前,在香港和东南亚地区,它还称作“上帝的儿女”。

4.铤而走险的“大卫教派”(Branch Davidian)

    1993年4月19日,宣扬世界末日的美国邪教组织大卫教派在其头领大卫·考雷什的带领下,同联邦执法人员对峙达51天后,一场熊熊大火烧毁了他们固守的卡梅尔庄园,包括大卫·考雷什在内的许多信徒被烧死。人们不禁要问,大卫教派究竟是一个什么样的邪教组织?它是如何走上与政府武装对抗的道路的?

5.虚无飘渺的“天堂之门”(Heaven's Gate)

    “天堂之门”又称“天门教”,是70年代在美国出现的一个与海尔-波普彗星和UFO(不明飞行物)关系密切的邪教组织。其创立者是马歇尔·赫夫·阿普尔怀特和邦尼·卢·特鲁斯戴尔·尼托丝,自称“斗”(Do) 和“梯”(Ti) 、“他和她”及“二人”,被人们称为“波和皮普”(Bo and Peep)。

6.轰然倒塌的“人民圣殿”(The People's Temple)

    1978年11月18日,从独立未满十年的南美小国圭亚那的热带丛林深处,传出了一条令全世界震惊的惨讯:美国“人民圣殿教”900多名信徒在其教主吉姆·琼斯的带领下集体“自杀”!美国政府、圭亚那政府表示遗憾和不安。美国公众纷纷谴责“人民圣殿教”荒谬绝伦的行为,指出这不啻惨无人道的大屠杀,教主吉姆·琼斯是不折不扣的杀人魔王.
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沙发
发表于 2004-7-26 10:12:35 |只看该作者
沙林毒气:Schain poison gas

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板凳
发表于 2004-7-26 10:13:40 |只看该作者
Aum Supreme Truth (Aum)  


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other Names
Aum Shinrikyo
A.I.C. Sogo Kenkyusho
A.I.C. Comprehensive Research Institute

Description
A cult established in 1987 by Shoko Asahara, the Aum aimed to take over Japan, then the world. Approved as a religious entity in 1989 under Japanese law, the group ran candidates in a Japanese parliamentary election in 1990. Over time the cult began to emphasize the imminence of the end of the world and stated that the United States would initiate Armageddon by starting World War III with Japan. The Japanese Government revoked its recognition of the Aum as a religious organization in October 1995, but in 1997 a government panel decided not to invoke the Anti-Subversive Law against the group, which would have outlawed the cult. In 2000, Fumihiro Joyu took control of the Aum following his three-year jail sentence for perjury. Joyu was previously the group's spokesman and Russia Branch leader. Under Joyu's leadership the Aum changed its name to Aleph and claims to have rejected the violent and apocalyptic teachings of its founder.

Activities
The sect cultured the anthrax bacteria in large drums of liquid in the basement of its eight-storey headquarters in the Tokyo suburb of Kameido, says Hiroshi Takahashi of Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases. Then, in July 1993, Aum members pumped the liquid to the roof and sprayed it into the air for 24 hours. Read the whole article »

On 20 March 1995, Aum members simultaneously released the chemical nerve agent sarin on several Tokyo subway trains, killing 12 persons and injuring up to 6,000. (Recent studies put the number of persons who suffered actual physical injuries closer to 1,300, with the rest suffering from some form of psychological trauma.) The group was responsible for other mysterious chemical accidents in Japan in 1994. Its efforts to conduct attacks using biological agents have been unsuccessful. Japanese police arrested Asahara in May 1995, and he remained on trial, facing 17 counts of murder at the end of 2000. Since 1997 the cult continued to recruit new members, engage in commercial enterprise, and acquire property, although the cult scaled back these activities significantly in 2000 in response to public outcry. The cult maintains an Internet homepage.

Strength
The Aum's current membership is estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 persons. At the time of the Tokyo subway attack, the group claimed to have 9,000 members in Japan and up to 40,000 worldwide.

Location/Area of Operation
The Aum's principal membership is located only in Japan, but a residual branch comprising an unknown number of followers has surfaced in Russia.

External Aid
None
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地板
发表于 2004-7-26 10:22:34 |只看该作者

The Order of the Solar Temple

On December 23, 1995, The Order of the Solar Temple cult was again in the news. Sixteen members of the group were found slain in the woods above a small village in southeastern France. The apocalyptic cult was in the news in 1994 when 53 members and their leaders were found dead in Switzerland and Canada.

According to an Associated Press story dated January 1, Jean-Luc Chaumell, a cult watcher who has studied the Solar Temple group for 25 years, feels the latest deaths were the result of kidnapping and murder. Chaumell told a French newspaper he believes the two tragic occurrences resulted because of a feud between rival factions. Chaumell believes the 16 members found in Switzerland were witnesses to the 1994 killings.

Chaumell told French authorities that nine more witnesses are still alive and are in danger. He said some of the recent victims were preparing meals when abducted from their homes by their murderers.

On January 10, a French National Assembly panel on sects presented it's report after six months of studies. The panel had been set up prior to the latest cult related deaths to consider if new laws were needed to outlaw or control cults in France.

Panel spokesman, Jacques Guyard, has been vocal in his condemnation of Swiss authorities. Guyard has charged Swiss authorities with neglect in surveillance of the remaining Solar Temple members which might have prevented the latest tragedy. The Swiss stated they had no legal ground for surveillance according to a Reuter's article.

The panel recommended that a special commission be established under the
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发表于 2004-7-26 10:23:25 |只看该作者

Order of the Solar Temple

Cult of the Month: Order of the Solar Temple
Plus! Moony front groups  
Moony Front Grtoups

Editor's Note:

The Knights of Templar is an ancient, highly mysterious and controversial group with surviving offshoots and hybrids. Whether the Order of the Solar Temple represents a legitimate extension of these groups is debatable. Also, the writers at Mayhem.net lace their presentation with noticeably "anti-cult" language (e.g., referring to the cult as "eurotrash.") not necessarily endorsed by PlanetSave.com. The following is excerpted from Mayhem.net

CULT OF THE MONTH: Order of the Solar Temple
(Death Toll: 74) As the millennium rapidly approaches, this apocalyptic eurotrash cult has claimed 74 victims in three bizarre mass suicide rituals. Strangely, most of the members of the sect seem to be highly educated and well-to-do individuals. The Order itself stems from the Knights of Templar, a secretive medieval organization founded by French crusaders in Jerusalem. How it became a New Age Yuppie Suicide machine remains a mystery.

The Temple came to prominence on October 5, 1994, when 53 people committed murder-suicide simultaneously in several chalets in Switzerland and Canada. The two known leaders of the group, Luc Jouret, a Belgian New Ageist homeopathic doctor, and Joseph di Mambro, a wealthy businessman, were among the dead in Switzerland. Investigators have been trying to find out who took over from Jouret and Di Mambro. French police say the new leader could be Michel Tabachnika, a Swiss orchestra conductor. The conductor has denied press reports that he is a cult member. However, his wife died in the 1994 murder-suicide ritual in the Swiss village of Cheiry.

The cult seems to give great importance to the sun. Their fiery ritual murder-suicides are meant to take members of the sect to a new world on the star "Sirius." To assist with the trip, several of the victims, including some children, are shot in the head, asphyxiated with black plastic bags, and/or poisoned. Luc and Joseph wrote, in a letter delivered after their deaths that they were "leaving this earth to find a new dimension of truth and absolution, far from the hypocrisies of this world."l

A second mass suicide ritual ocurred about a week before Christmas in 1995. On December 23, on a remote plateau of the French Alps police found 16 charred bodies arranged in a star formation with their feet pointing to the ashes of a fire. Like the rituals of 1994, they all died by stabbing, asphyxiation, shooting and/or poisoning. Their bodies were burned to a crisp as part of a cleansing ritual.

A week before discovering the bodies, Swiss and French authorities suspected the worst when the 16 cult members disappeared from their homes. Some left behind handwritten notes expressing their intentions of committing mass suicide. One of the notes stated: "Death does not exist, it is pure illusion. May we, in our inner life, find each other forever." Two of the dead were the wife and son of French ski champion and millionaire eye wear manufacturer, Jean Vuarnet.

In March 23, 1997 five more dead bodies were found in a burned house owned by Didier Queze, a member of the Order, in St. Casimir, Quebec. The bodies of four cultists -- Didier, her husband, and another couple -- were found in a bed upstairs positioned in what may have been intended to be the shape of the cross. The mother of Didier was found dead on a sofa downstairs with a plastic bag over her head. Unlike earlier suicides in which adults killed their children, the three teen-age children of the cultist couple were spared.

Apparently the teen-agers woke up the day before the suicide to discover their parents and their cultist friend had placed propane tanks, electric hot plates, and fire-starters on the main floor of the two-story house and were trying to burn down the place. Realizing what was happening the teenagers expressed their disapproval and negotiated with their parents to be spared. However, Fanie Queze-Goupillot, 14, and her brothers Tom, 13, and Julien, 16, agreed to take sleeping pills before their parents' fiery death and went to sleep in a workshop near the house. "The children were given medication, but they knew that when they woke up their parents and grandmother would be dead."

End
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发表于 2004-7-26 10:29:01 |只看该作者

Children of God

Children of God

It is difficult to find a cult with a worse reputation than the Children of God (now known as The Family). Despite an Aids-prompted clean up, it is still the target of regular tabloid campaigns. As recently as October of last year a teenage girl was awarded 5,000 pounds by the British Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, having been abused by members of the sect from the age of three. It is estimated that of the 9,000 current members of The Family, 6,000 are children; many of them the offspring of the sect's 'Hookers for Christ' campaign in the 1970s and 1980s, in which women members seduced potential converts and bore their children. The Family's image has improved slightly with the death last year of its maverick leader David Berg. Born in 1919 to preacher parents, in the late 1960s Berg took his anti-establishment word of God to California, where he became known as 'the original hippy'.
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发表于 2004-7-26 10:30:16 |只看该作者

Children of God

30 Members of Children
Of God Arrested
Reuter
Thursday, September 2, 1993
The Washington Post; Page A05
NEW YORK, SEPT. 1
he Children of God, a religious cult accused of promoting indiscriminate sex in the name of Jesus and which claims 12,000 members in 70 countries, was in the spotlight today after scores of its followers were arrested in Buenos Aires.

According to the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), which monitors such groups, the Children of God cult initiates its children into sex at the age of 12. CAN and former cultists say the group's adult members and its children sleep with each other indiscriminately, believing that salvation comes through sexuality.

The arrests in Argentina, where 300 children were taken into custody and 30 of their parents arrested, follow similar police actions in France, Spain and Australia.

A court official in Buenos Aires said the adults -- among them Americans, Canadians, French, Spaniards, Uruguayans, Bolivians, Paraguayans and Argentines -- face charges of racketeering, kidnapping and violations of children's rights under international pacts.

The cult, which was founded in 1968 by Californian David Berg, was banned in France in 1978 after stories began to circulate of brainwashing and sexual abuse of children. On June 10, more than 50 sect members were arrested and 140 children taken in for questioning after raids took place across France.

At one house alone, near Aix en Provence in the south, police found 40 children 3 to 15 years old. Police said the children may have been raped.

Authorities said the sect has continued to operate under various pseudonyms, including Family Love, Intimate Missionary and Families Unlimited.

Last year, 120 children were taken into custody in Australia, and in 1990, 10 group members suspected of perverting children were arrested in Spain.

The group all but abandoned the United States in the mid-1970s and has changed its name here, calling itself the Family, CAN said.

The Watchman Fellowship, a Christian counter-cult group that said it provides information on such groups, said the Children of God continue to promote free sex.

"They have promotional videotapes and it's very clear they're promoting the 'law of love,' where promiscuity is emphasized within the group," said Craig Branch, one official at the Fellowship.

"Even children should participate, and not be afraid of sex. They should look on it as a loving experience," he said, explaining the cult's philosophy.
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发表于 2004-7-26 10:33:25 |只看该作者

Branch Davidians

Branch Davidians

| Group Profile | Beliefs | Issues and Controversies | Links | Bibliography |


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I. Group Profile

Name: Branch Davidians
The Branch Davidians were earlier known as The Shepherds Rod, the Branch Seventh-Day Adventist or Branch SDA's.


Founder: Victor Tasho Houteff

Date of Birth: March 2, 1885

Birth Place: Raikovo, Bulgaria

Year Founded: 1929

Brief History
Victor Houteff first heard the teachings of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in 1918 at a revival meeting. He soon became an active and committed member. In 1929, he publicly announced his personal interpretation of the Bible which pivots on Micah 6:9 and the phrase "Hear ye the rod." Houteff believed Seventh-Day Adventist doctrines and teachings were inacurate and he called for reform. The church isolated Houteff and his followers with the result that Houteff broke from SDA and founded The Shepherd's Rod.

Houteff saw himself as a divine messenger sent by God to reveal the secret information in the scroll mentioned in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 5. The scroll is protected by seven seals and within it reveals the events which are to occur prior to Christ's return and how the world will end.

In addition, Houteff believed his task was to assembly a group of 144,000 Christians, as symbolized in the Book of Revelation 7:4. The group would travel to Palestine where they would establish the Davidic kingdom, which would lead to the second coming of Christ and the downfall of Babylon (i.e. the end of the world). Houteff compiled his beliefs in his book "The Shepherd's Rod."

He began the process of attaining followers by founding the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas with eleven of his followers in 1935. Recruitment from within the SDA Church continued until 1942 when Houteff and his group broke completely from the Seventh-Day Adventist Church because the latter refused to allow for conscientious objection status during World War II. This event prompted Houteff to change the name of his group to the Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist Association. Recruiting internationally, numbers continued to rise. By 1955, there were about 125 members residing at the Mount Carmel Center with others in Los Angeles and around the country.

In 1955, Victor Houteff died. His followers were astonished because they had come to regard him as the new Elijah who would "help usher in the reign of God." With his mission incomplete and his prophetic claims unfulfilled, unease swept throughout the group.

Houteff's wife, Florence, assumed leadership of the movement despite splintering within the group. One such splinter group, the Branch Davidians, led by Benjamin Roden, would later take control of the Davidian movement. Before this occurred, however, Florence Houteff predicted that the time of God's judgement would fall on April 22, 1959 because the 1,260 days of Revelation 11 would be completed and on that day God would intervene in Palestine. Followers began to assemble at the New Mount Carmel, located east of Waco, on April 16, 1959, prepared to move to the Holy Land.

When Florence's prophecy did not come true, intense splintering began within the group. Admitting her errors, Florence dissolved the Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist Association in 1961 and sold Mount Carmel to Ben Roden in 1965.

Roden named his faction the Branch Davidian SDA's. Roden declared himself the fifth angel (Revelation 9:1), in the same vein as Houteff, who had declared himself the fourth angel (Revelation 8:12). He lead the Branch until his death in 1978, whereupon his wife, Lois Roden, assumed the role of the sixth angel (Revelation 9:16). She was regarded as a prophet and thought to possess new insight into the "femininity of the Holy Spirit".

Vernon Howell joined the group in 1981 and Lois expressed her belief that he would be the group's next prophet. However, George Roden, Lois's son, forced Howell and his followers out of Mount Carmel in 1984. In 1988, Roden was sent to jail for contempt of court, a charge which stemmed from a series of obscene documents he filed with the court. With him behind bars, Howell took control of Mount Carmel and the Branch.

In 1990, Vernon Howell changed his name to David Koresh (Koresh is a form of Cyrus). He chose this name from Isaiah 45, which states that Cyrus "was the only non-Israelite who was given the title 'anointed' or 'a messiah' or in Greek, 'a christ'." Koresh regarded himself as the Lamb from Revelation 5, and took it upon himself to open the seven seals and interpret the scroll (Revelation 5:2). If he could accomplish this task, Koresh believed, he would bring about the second coming of Jesus Christ.


Sacred or Revered Texts:
The Bible, particularly the Book of Revelation.


Cult or Sect: Negative sentiments are typically implied when the concepts "cult" and "sect" are employed in popular discourse. Since the Religious Movements Homepage seeks to promote religious tolerance and appreciation of the positive benefits of pluralism and religious diversity in human cultures, we encourage the use of alternative concepts that do not carry implicit negative stereotypes. For a more detailed discussion of both scholarly and popular usage of the concepts "cult" and "sect," please visit our Conceptualizing "Cult" and "Sect" page, where you will find additional links to related issues.

Size of Group:
Prior to the government raid, standoff, and fire in the spring of 1993, there were approximately 130 members. Currently, there are estimates from only a dozen active members to 30 or 50 surviving and active members, including recent converts. There are also groups that have splintered from the Branch Davidians, but current membership is unknown.


| Group Profile | Beliefs | Issues and Controversies | Links | Bibliography |


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


II. Beliefs of the Group

The Branch Davidians "embrace the core teachings of the Seventh-Day Adventists." The SDA Church follows most of the conservative Christian beliefs: creation, original sin, the virgin birth, the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden, the divinity of Christ, the Trinity, belief in Satan as evil, the infallibility of Scripture, salvation by the atonement of Christ, etc. (Seventh-Day Adventist Church)
Their beliefs, however, do depart from traditional Christian doctrine on several important points. Three major doctrinal differences exist. First, the written word of Ellen White is considered to be inspired by God and thus an authoritative source of truth. Secondly, they deny the concept of "innate mortality". They believe that when someone dies they remain unconscious until they are either resurrected into eternal life with God, which is only given to righteous Christians, or annihilated. Third, they believe that the second coming of Christ is imminent. Following the Second Coming believers who had previously died will be resurrected and taken to heaven and for the next 1000 years only Satan and his angels will live on earth. A second resurrection will occur and the righteous will return to a newly cleansed earth and establish the New Jerusalem. The unrighteous who died before the Second Coming will be consumed by fire, along with Satan and his angels. (Seventh-Day Adventist Church)

In addition to these three doctrinal differences between SDA and conventional Christianity, there are also important behavioral differences. First, Seventh-Day Adventists observe the Sabbath on Saturday. Second, they strongly emphasize health, specifically vegetarianism. Third, they believe in conscientious objection with regard to military service. prophecy and fulfillment, he extensively utilized the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation. In true "millenarian" tradition, Houteff interpreted current events as signs of the end of time. Emphasizing that truth is gradually revealed over time, Houteff referred to his teachings as the "Present Truth." Houteff focused on establishing a true church of 144,000 believers and unlocking the biblical secrets because he believed the end was near.

Ben Roden succeeded Houteff and built on the ideas of those who preceded him. Under Roden, the Branch Davidians created a logo to represent their beliefs. It was a circular field filled with a star of David and twelve perimeter stars. "Ensign" was written across the center and the reference "Isaiah 11:1" was placed underneath it. Superimposed upon the design was a plant with three designations: Jesse the Stem, David the Rod, and Christ the Branch. Roden saw himself as the leader of the final phase of the movement. The goal was to reproduce the character of Christ in the lives of the elect 144,000 in preparation for the Second Coming; an idea referred to as Adventist perfectionism. In his writings, Roden focused on anti-Catholicism, recovery of Israelite festivals, and General Conference reform. His intention was to create a Branch Davidian center in Israel. Roden also believed in the observance of ceremonial law of the Old Testament. According to Roden, it was important to observe Jewish festivals because "the ceremonial Law sets the time for the important events in the last days."

In 1977, Roden's wife, Lois, experienced a vision. Following this vision, Lois Roden began to teach that the Holy Spirit was feminine. In addition, she proclaimed that at the Second Coming the messiah would appear in female form. After her husband's death in 1978, which she hailed as the day when the seventh seal in the book of Revelation was opened, Lois continued her mission of spreading the word about God's femininity to all believers. Lois became alienated from her son, George, because of his struggle for succession, and consequently allied herself with Vernon Howell.

Vernon Howell (David Koresh) ultimately became the leader of the Branch Davidians and ushered in a new era for the Branch Davidians with his New Light doctrine and elevated prophetic status. Koresh furthered the work of his forefathers by continuing with the Adventist tradition, adopting a messianic role essential to human salvation, and ordaining the end time. With his focus on the Book of Revelation, Koresh desired to create a new lineage of God's children from his seed, making him the perfect mate for all female adherents. Thus, Koresh became the pivotal character in the restoration of humanity to its divine purpose. Koresh established what he called the House of David and in 1984 began taking "spiritual wives." Differing from past eras, he progressively linked his group's activities to an imminent future and not to past tradition. A key distinction within Koresh's era was his gradual revelation of the secrets of the seven seals in Bible study sessions, which convinced the group that they were living in the end time. Koresh stressed that the apocalypse would occur in America and not in Israel, and because of this the Davidians began to adopt survivalist tactics such as stockpiling food and weapons. In 1992, he renamed the Mount Carmel community "Ranch Apocalypse."

Under Koresh's leadership, the group adopted a much more communal form of organization and recruited heavily from the young adult population. Community organization became more communal as living at Mount Carmel was emphasized, marriages were arranged, all money went towards the group, and the "Mighty Men" (based on the guards at King Solomon's bed in the Bible) was established. The "Mighty Men" were Koresh's lieutenants who held various responsibilities within the community. Gradually, tension with the larger society increased as the Davidians moved toward prophetic movement organization. Perpetuating the conflict with the greater society and with the SDA, Koresh and the Branch Davidians concentrated on moving into the divinely ordained future, revealing the secrets of the seven seals, and awaiting the end of time with the Second Coming of Christ.


| Group Profile | Beliefs | Issues and Controversies | Links | Bibliography |


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

III Contemporary Issues/Controversies:
Dividian Update!
Controversy Erupts Anew
In late July, 1999 stories began to appear claiming anew that the FBI was responsible for starting the fire in the Branch Dividian compound that caused the death of 80 persons entrapped in the building. In a Washington Times story on July 30, Attorney General Janet Reno denied that the FBI was responsible for the fire. A month later, the nations' newspapers were full of stories about allegations of the use of incendiary tear gas cartridges, and the presence of the highly secret Army Delta Force on the scene. Clearly frustrated that information has been withheld from her, and that her own credibility was at stake, Reno vowed to get to the bottom of the matter and find the truth.

With the appointment of former U.S. Senator John Danforth as the head of an independent inquiry about how the F.B.I. handled the Branch Dividian siege, and the forthcoming wrongful death trial, we can anticipate that there will be breaking news about Waco for many months.

It is not possible for this site to maintain a current list of links to news coverage. What we have done is to update our links to the many tremendously valuable resources on Waco that are available on the Internet. And we have added, and will continue to add, annotations that we hope will assist readers in locating materials of particular interest to them.

In accepting the position of independent investigator, Mr. Danforth pledged to focus on two "dark questions:" Did the federal government kill people? And was there a cover up? He also said that he was not going to try and second guess decisions made by field officers and their superiors. We hope Mr. Danforth will not so narrowly define his inquiry, for it was most certainly a series of poor judgments and decisions that led ultimately to the inferno that took the lives of so many persons who should not have died. If Mr. Danforth does nothing else but read the many carefully documented reports that are linked to this page, we believe he will come to the same conclusion.

This is not to say, of course, that there is no need to investigate possible cover-ups. But there is already a great deal of evidence, and it should not be taken off the table because it may not fit Mr. Danforth's "dark questions".

Jeffrey K. Hadden
09/17/99


| Group Profile | Beliefs | Issues and Controversies | Links | Bibliography |


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This segment on "Issues and Controversies" was written by Kimberly Post as part of the initial Branch Davidian page she created in Spring Term, 1997.

Investigating possible firearms violations within the compound at Mount Carmel, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) agents raided the Branch Davidian compound on February 28, 1993. The fact that those who the agents were investigating were involved in what was believed to be a cult heavily influenced the way in which the agents went about dealing with David Koresh and the others suspected of firearms violations. This is evident in BATF agent Davy Aguilera's "Probable Cause Affidavit," which became part of the search warrant issued on February 25, 1993.

Relying heavily on reports from a few former members of the Branch Davidians, Marc Breault (a former member and angry apostate) and Rick Ross (a deprogrammer and anti-cultist), Aguilera's affidavit delved into topics not under the jurisdiction of the BATF or part of the initial investigation into firearms violations, such as allegations of child abuse. His affidavit and the assumptions put forth by Breault and Ross decisively influenced the investigation and opinion of Koresh and his followers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Attorney General Janet Reno, and President Clinton. Swayed primarily by the statements of Breault, and convinced that there was more than firearms violations going on at Mount Carmel, the BATF chose to serve the search warrant by raiding the compound, instead of apprehending Koresh while he was away from the compound. Ironically, the illegal activities that Koresh was being arrested for had to do with failure to properly register certain firearms and had nothing to do with the illegal possession of the alleged weapons. The nature of the compound and the fact that the Branch Davidians were considered a cult by the government convinced the BATF that because of its "cultic" nature bad things were going on inside Mount Carmel. As a result, the BATF raided the compound on February 28, 1993.

After the unsuccessful raid, in which six Davidians and four BATF agents died and at least one Davidian and 24 agents were wounded, the FBI took over. Subsequently, a siege ensued which ultimately lasted 51 days. The FBI believed that the children inside the compound were being abused based on a report from a psychiatrist at the Baylor College of Medicine. (The report was apparently false and based on false memories implanted in the children). During the siege, several Branch Davidians left the compound. (Waco-Inside Story)

Negotiations with Koresh were frustrating for both parties. On the one hand, the FBI did not take Koresh's message seriously and one agent referred to it as "Bible babble." On the other hand, Koresh agreed to surrender if his sermon was broadcast, which it was on March 2, but he changed his mind after receiving a revelation from God. On April 14, Koresh received a revelation in which he was instructed to write a description of the seven seals and then surrender. However, the FBI did not give him enough time and attacked only five days later. Consulting a number of psychiatrists, who knew little about new religious movements, the FBI decided it was safe to attack the compound with tear gas. However, numerous new religious movement experts warned the FBI about destructive cults and the potential for mass suicide if aggressive action was taken. Running out of patience and time (the FBI emergency response team was in need of refresher training and there was no replacement team), the FBI attacked the compound with tanks on April 19, 1993. Koresh and about 75 of his followers perished, including 21 children. Eight managed to escape. (Waco-Inside Story)

Numerous debates ensued about the use of CS gas and how the fire started. The complete truth will probably never be known, but it does appear that three fires started simultaneously throughout the compound, implying that the Davidians started the fires. In addition, some of the members did not die from the smoke or falling debris but from gun shots. However, coroners have stated that the pattern of most of the bodies was not consistent with a theory of mass suicide. Following the inferno and subsequent investigation, eight Davidians were convicted on charges ranging from voluntary manslaughter to weapons violations. However, they were acquitted of most of the more serious charges. During sentencing, the judge handed down the most severe sentences possible with respect to the charges that the Davidians were found guilty of. Two BATF supervisors, Chuck Sarabyn and Phillip Chojinacki, were fired but later reinstated at lower ranks. No FBI agents have been officially disciplined. (Waco-Inside Story)


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发表于 2004-7-26 10:35:28 |只看该作者

Branch Davidians

Many Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh, died in a controversial, ill-advised U.S. government operation. Several survivors are serving time in prison. Currently, there are a number of Branch Davidian factions, such as the ones led by Clive Doyle and Renos Avraam.

Surviving Branch Davidians have testitied that they considered David Koresh to be God incarnate.

The Branch Davidians are a sect (in the sense of "splinter group") of the Seventh-Day Adventists movement. Theologically, the various Davidian groups, of which Branch Davidians is best known, are considered cults of Christianity.


The Branch Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists are basically Millerites. They are historical and doctrinal descendents of the Seventh-Day Adventist and a break-off group of reformers, the Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists.
Source: James Trimm, A Doctrine Unto Death: Branch Davidian Theology



Overview


This BBC news report provides a good overview of the Branch Davidians and the siege:



The Waco compound: Home of the Branch Davidians

David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, thought he was an angel and an agent of God.

The government thought he was a gun-hoarding criminal who physically and sexually abused the several children he fathered with his followers.

And although he died with almost 80 of his followers in a fire during an FBI assault on their compound six years ago, ongoing questions about the raid have given the charismatic religious leader immortality in the press.

The prophet king

Koresh was born Vernon Wayne Howell in Houston Texas in 1959.


David Koresh: Charismatic leadership ended in disaster

His childhood was difficult. He never knew his father and was raised by his grandparents.

He suffered from dyslexia and the taunts of his schoolmates, and by the ninth grade, he dropped out of school.

Despite being a poor student, he was keenly interested in the Bible, and by the age of 12 had memorised large parts of it.

After travelling to Hollywood in a failed attempt to become a rock star, he joined the Branch Davidians in 1981.

Koresh became involved in a power struggle for leadership of the group. He left with a group of followers, but in 1987, he returned with seven of his disciples.

They were armed with five .223 calibre semi-automatic assault rifles, two .22 calibre rifles, two 12-gauge shotguns and 400 rounds of ammunition.

The leader of the group, George Roden, was wounded in the attack, and Koresh and the seven followers were tried on charges of attempted murder.

The seven followers were acquitted, and in the case of Koresh, a mistrial was declared.

By 1990, he had become the head of the Branch Davidians.

The history of the Davidians

The Branch Davidians descend from a schism in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Koresh's mother was a member of the church, and he was a member for a short time as well.

The schism in the Seventh-Day Adventists began in the 1930s when Victor Houteff, a prominent Adventist in Los Angeles, wrote a book saying the church had become lax.

Mr Houteff's Davidian Seventh-day Adventists began to fall apart after his death in 1955. His widow Florence took over the group, but when Christ did not return as she predicted on Easter Day of 1959, most of the followers left.

A core group remained, a power struggle ensued, and a man named Ben Roden declared himself the leader of a new group, the Branch Davidians.

Preparing for the end

After Koresh took control of the group, he annulled the marriages of his followers, according to former members of the cult. He said that only he could be married. Several members left.

The former followers told authorities that Koresh would beat the children until they were bruised and bleeding. Social workers investigated but could never confirm the charges.

For the remaining followers, they prepared for the end of the world.

Koresh said that the Apocalypse would begin when the American army attacked Mount Carmel, their compound outside of Waco.

They buried a school bus to serve as a bunker and stockpiled food and ammunition.

Chronology of a showdown

The showdown between the government and the cult began on Sunday, 28 February, 1993, when agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted to arrest Koresh on charges of illegal firearms and explosives charges.


The authorities buzzed the compound day and night to deny the inhabitants sleep

It has not been determined who fired first, but gunfire erupted.

Four ATF agents were killed, another 16 were wounded and an undetermined number of Davidians were killed and wounded. Koresh later disclosed that he had been wounded.

The FBI took control of the situation, and President Clinton endorsed a negotiated settlement.

Negotiations began the next day, and 10 children were released. The FBI moved armoured vehicles to the compound's perimeter.

The armoured vehicles and their movements would anger Koresh throughout the siege.


Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents were heavily armed

The day after the first gun battle, Koresh made a tape of his teachings and promised to surrender if the recording was broadcast nationally.

The tape was broadcast on the Christian Broadcasting Network, but Koresh said that God had told him to wait.

Negotiations continued over the next several days, but Koresh refused to surrender. He made rambling religious statements interspersed with threats of violence.

The FBI became concerned that the Davidians would commit mass suicide. Over the next 51 days, negotiations went back and forth.


The FBI maintain the deadly fire was started by the cult members themselves

On 12 March, Janet Reno was sworn in as attorney general.

On the same day, the FBI decided to cut off electricity to the compound until the stand off ended.

On 9 April, Koresh sent a letter to the FBI saying that the "heavens are calling you to judgement."

The FBI enlisted experts to analyse the letter. They concluded Koresh had no intention of leaving voluntarily.

The FBI finalised plans to use tear gas against the Davidians and sought the approval of Janet Reno. After consulting army anti-terrorism experts, she approved the plan on 17 April.

Ms Reno briefed President Clinton the next day, and he concurred but also expressed concerns about the children's safety.

On Sunday 18 April, as armoured vehicles cleared cars from the front of the compound, the Davidians held children up in the windows of a tower on the compound and a sign saying: "Flames Await."

On Monday 19 April, the FBI notified the Davidians of the imminent tear gas assault. The Davidians begin shooting shortly after the gas attack began shortly after 6 a.m.

The gas attack continued for several hours, and the armoured vehicles begin smashing holes in the buildings.

At noon, several fires started within the compound. Shortly thereafter, nine Davidians fled the compound.

The FBI continues to maintain that members of the cult started the fires.

Fire-fighting efforts began, but the wooden structures quickly became engulfed. Koresh and 76 followers, including more than 20 children, died.
Source: Koresh and the Waco Siege BBC, Aug. 27, 1999, By BBC News Online's Kevin Anderson in Washington



Jury clears US over Waco deaths


A Texas jury has ruled that the US Government was not to blame for the death of about 80 members of the Branch Davidian sect during the Waco stand-off with federal agents in 1993.

About 100 survivors and relatives of the dead had sued the government for $675m, alleging that agents had used excessive force to end the 51-day siege.

The stand-off ended in a fire on 19 April, 1993 at the cult's Mount Carmel compound, Texas, with at least 17 children among the dead.

Counsel for the plaintiffs had argued that federal agents were at least partly responsible for the deaths of the cult members.

But government lawyers said the blame lay squarely with the sect and its leader David Koresh, whom agents were trying to arrest on weapons charges. He was among the dead.

After deliberating for over two hours, the five-member jury found that agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) were not responsible for provoking the stand-off, and that FBI agents were not to blame for starting or contributing to the fatal fire.

'Tragedy'

The jury's decision is an advisory one only, and a federal judge will take the ruling into account before delivering a final verdict himself - probably some time next month.

After the jury's decision was announced, the Justice Department said: "This terrible tragedy was the responsibility of David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, not the federal government. We are pleased the jury affirmed that view."

Nonethless, plaintiffs' lawyer and former attorney-general Ramsey Clark said in impassioned closing arguments that the deaths of the cult members "didn't have to happen" and called the siege "the greatest domestic law enforcement tragedy in the history of the United States".

"If the conduct of the ATF and the FBI was performed without excessive force and without negligence, then how in the world did it end up with such unmitigated, disastrous effects?" Mr Clark asked.

The BBC's Washington correspondent says the jury's finding is unlikely to silence America's many conspiracy theorists and anti-government activists who hold up the Waco siege and fire as a prime example of government interference in people's freedom.

The government blamed Branch Davidians for lighting the fires that consumed the compound and said firefighters could not approach because of the danger of Davidian gunfire and from exploding munitions stored on the grounds.

Jurors heard audio tapes made inside the compound, in which unidentified Branch Davidians were heard asking apparently incriminating questions such as "Start the fire?" and "Should we light the fire?"

Lengthy investigations

The siege sparked years of Congressional inquiries and criminal trials, as well as a probe started last year by a special investigator named by the US Justice Department.

The government argued that Koresh taught his followers he was an incarnation of God and trained them for an armed apocalyptic conflict.

But surviving Davidians testified that Mount Carmel was a peaceful Bible study centre.
Source: Jury clears US over Waco deaths BBC, July 15, 2000



Inquiry clears FBI of Waco blame


A government-appointed investigator in the US has cleared the FBI of blame over the Waco siege.

About 80 members of the Branch Davidian cult died when fire engulfed their compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993.

Special Counsel John C Danford was given the task of investigating whether FBI agents had triggered the inferno.

But in preliminary findings released on Friday, he said he had concluded with "100% certainty" that the FBI, and the US Government were not to blame.

"The tragedy at Waco rests with certain Branch Davidians and their leader David Koresh, who shot and killed four (government) agents, wounded 20 others, shot at FBI agents trying to insert tear gas into the complex, burned down the complex, and shot at least 20 of their own people, including five children," said the report from former Senator Danford.

Siege

The blaze broke out during as agents moved into the compound to end the 51-day siege.

Speculation that the FBI may have triggered the blaze accidentally intensified, after the agency finally admitted last year it had fired potentially incendiary devices into the compound.

Videotape of the events also appeared to show unexplained flashes.

But Senator Danford, who was appointed by Attorney-General Janet Reno, said on Friday he was certain government agents had not started the fire, nor opened fire on the Davidians.

He also said the government had not improperly used the military.

'No wrongdoing'

And he said there had been no government cover-up.

"There is no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of Attorney-General Reno, the present and former director of the FBI, other high officials of the United States or members of the FBI hostage team who fired pyrotechnic tear gas on 19 April, 1993," he told a news conference.

During his inquiry, he hired a UK firm, Vector Data systems, to recreate some of the final day's events.

The firm said in its report that the flashes seen on the video were sunlight reflecting off debris, not security forces' gunfire.

The report comes a week after a jury in Texas also found that federal agents were not to blame for the deaths.

About 100 survivors and relatives of the dead had sued the government for $675m, alleging that agents had used excessive force to end the siege.

The deaths have sparked years of Congressional inquiries and criminal trials.

The government argued that Koresh taught his followers he was an incarnation of God and trained them for an armed apocalyptic conflict.

But surviving Davidians have insisted that their compound was a peaceful Bible study centre.
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发表于 2004-7-26 10:39:00 |只看该作者

Heaven's Gate

JCMC 3 (3) December 1997
Message Board
  
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Heaven's Gate: The End?


Wendy Gale Robinson
Department of Religion
Duke University


School of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Table of Contents
Abstract
Introduction
Who Were Heaven's Gate?
Decoding the Code
Advertisement
Keywords
Apocalypse 2000
Is Cyberculture to Blame?
Cyborg: Meat Machine
Transcending the Body
Online Multiplicity
Afterlife
Footnotes
References
Web Sites Cited in the Article
About the Author
Hale-Bopp's approach is the "marker"
we've been waiting for --
the time for the arrival of the spacecraft
from the Level Above Human
to take us home to "Their World" --
in the literal Heavens.
-- Heaven's Gate Home Page







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Abstract
In San Diego on March 26, 1997, the bodies were found of 39 similarly dressed men and women who took their own lives in a mass suicide. Led by Marshall Applewhite, the Heaven's Gate cult believed that a flying saucer was traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet. They chose to leave their physical bodies behind to find redemption in an extraterrestrial "Kingdom of Heaven." The sect also left behind apocalyptic messages in their Rancho Santa Fe mansion and on home pages on the World Wide Web. This paper looks at online material produced by the cult and the media coverage of their tragic end, it explores the background of the cult and the science fiction and millennial influences on their beliefs, and it considers the group's connection with cyberculture and some of the questions raised by their mass suicide, which perhaps, as David Potz said in Slate, "promises to be the first great Internet mystery" [(Potz, March 28, 1997)].


Introduction

These "keys to the kingdom" link to further information on the Heaven's Gate home page, which serves as the cult's suicide note and mission statement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was late Thursday evening, March 27, 1997, when the first headlines crossed my desk at the Raleigh News and Observer. I had come to expect a certain decorum at the N&O, but with the Heaven's Gate suicides, the difference in tone was striking: "Cult members were deeply into cyberspace," "Cult leader believed in space aliens and apocalypse," "Tapes left by cult suggest comet was the sign to die" [(Nando.net, March 28, 1997)]. At last, I thought, the press has found the bad-news story with an Internet angle that it has been waiting for.

Since the first Internet covers of Time and Newsweek in 1992-93 that legitimized and sensationalized the Internet, followed by the mainstream popularity of the World Wide Web, the Net has been vilified as often as it's been hailed as a panacea to the world's ills, a late twentieth-century electronic Eldorado.[1] In practice, of course, the Net is in itself neither a utopian nor a dystopian place, but rather is made up of people who for the most part are sitting in front of monitors and keyboards exchanging commonplace information a bit more conveniently, if often with a sense of "virtual community" [(Rheingold, 1993)] within "cyberspace" [(Gibson, 1984)]. Nevertheless like William Gibson who coined the term, the press seems deeply ambivalent about cyberspace and its populace. As Joshua Quittner wrote in "Life and Death on the Web" in Time, "Every time this country extrudes any significant bit of evil at its fringes my editors dispatch me to the Internet to look for its source" [(Quittner, April 7, 1997, 47)].

The Heaven's Gate techno-deaths delivered the sensationalist goods. [(Quittner, 1997)] continued, "Here was obsession, delusion and mass suicide played out in multimedia and hypertext -- a horror, finally, best observed online." Yet most of the early reports spent disappointingly little time looking at Heaven's Gate online. There was abundant coverage of the curiosities -- the castrations, the purple shrouds, the comet, The X-Files -- but little about the individual cult members as celebrated Webmasters. It seemed to be enough that the group had a Web presence business and used the online medium among other media to disseminate messages to declare the Net guilty by association.

The virtual community reacted with outrage.[2] The suicides and the media's blinkered condemnation came fresh on the heels of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which had been argued with mixed success before the Supreme Court on March 19 (but which was overturned on June 26 [(Reno v. ACLU)]). A groan passed across the Net as members of the community wondered whether the actions of the cultists might influence public policy at a particularly vulnerable time, when free speech and openness, and the Net's importance as an electronic town hall, was a matter of public debate [(e.g., in 1996-97, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Blue Ribbon Campaign, the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition, and 24 Hours of Democracy]). In "Deaths in the Family" on HotWired, Jon Katz said:

The killings gave our fearful guardians in politics and mainstream media yet another new Net phobia to warn America about. Cultists momentarily pushed aside pornographers as the demonic and threatening offspring of new technology. The Internet, just last week an interstate highway for perverts, was transformed for a few days into a natural breeding ground for fanatics and zealots [(Katz, March 31, 1997)].

Writing for The New York Times, George Johnson similarly noted in "From Porn to Cults, the Net Looks Nasty":

For the techno-libertarians intent on keeping the abstract duchy called cyberspace the freest of all lands, the last few months have been a nightmare of bad vibrations rippling through what the electronic elite derisively calls the "old media."  Every day, it seems, television newscasts and newspapers carry reports of unspeakable acts conducted over the Internet.  Pedophiles and maybe even prisoners trade pornography and tips on kidnapping, while trying to seduce children in electronic chat-rooms. . . .  From listening to some people's fears, one would think that Internet bandwidth had increased to the point where a distant evil hacker could download your mind [(Johnson, March 30, 1997)].  

Rather than informing the public and setting the record straight, the singular Heaven's Gate incident was exploited by the traditional media to fan the flames of suspicion much as pornography had been used all along.[3] The Net of dangerous pictures became the Net of dangerous ideas. The media, which over the past year or so had been colonizing and commercializing the Web, and therefore didn't even seem to be acting in its own best interest, let us down. Again [(Rheingold, 1996)]. As Highersource.org, one of the best known parodies of the cult that quickly sprouted on the Net, put it:

The media spin on the suicide of religious cult members is, in a word, inexcusable. Television, radio and print media sources have reported this as if the cult did all their recruiting online and killed themselves by ingesting poison computer parts. The cult was around for 22 years, LONG before the web. They only recently began making some money making VERY bad web pages (Highersource.org, March 1997).

A vocal segment of the online community seemed to hold the group in disdain because they did less than stellar Web work in terms of graphic and programming sophistication. While the term "Webmaster" often has little practical meaning, the fact that these apparently minor-league talents represented the majority of people putting up Web pages was felt to be insulting, although the democratization of publishing wrought by the Web does mean precisely this: that anyone with some pages written in HTML can claim Web expertise. Morgan Davis, operations director of one of San Diego's largest Internet providers, typified this attitude when he said, "They're rather mediocre. . . . Their art work is kind of amateurish. The layout and typesetting is not cutting-edge. It really looks like anything anyone could have done in their spare time" [(as cited in CNN, March 28, 1997)].[4]

Still the scornful Webmasters were hardly alone. With the notable exception of the millenarians, nobody wanted to be associated with Heaven's Gate, not Nike, not the gay community, not San Diegans, Californians, astronomers, the UFO community, or Trekkies [(News and Observer, March 30, 1997; Nando.net, April 1, 1997; Wambaugh, April 7, 1997)].  Even other cultists were backpedaling [(Kendall, March 30, 1997)]. Heaven's Gate's strange amalgam of beliefs made them the fringe of the fringe. In remarks that were widely quoted, the ultimate head of CNN himself, Ted Turner said: "It's a good way to get rid of a few nuts, you know, you gotta look at it that way. Well, they did it peacefully. At least they didn't go in like those S.O.B.s who go to McDonald's or post offices and shoot a lot of innocent people and then shoot themselves. At least they just went out and did it to themselves" [(Reuters, March 29, 1997)]. Gallows humor seemed to be the main statement made by their deaths.

Heaven's Gate quickly became a cyberculture in-joke.[5] By the time I was invited to speak on the topic ten days later [(Robinson, April 8, 1997)], friends were feeding me one-liners. It took all the restraint I could muster not to use the presentation as an opportunity to get my start as a stand-up comic with puns playing on Unix and eunuchs and references in questionable taste to keeping up with the "Joneses" (Heaven's Gate Humor, 1997). But the incongruity between these shallow jokes and sensationalist press coverage and the brutal reality of 39 people choosing to kill themselves upon a sign from the heavens was startling. Here was a group that scorned mortality, who considered their bodies to be nothing more than disposable shells, for whom the most profound issues of life and death and faith must've been part of their daily existence. Yet they seem ridiculous to many of us, whether we consider ourselves to be members of a Net community or not.

The gap between us and them in itself struck me as interesting in both the Freudian, cathartic sense [(Freud, 1922)] and in the way that [(Stephen O'Leary, 1994)] uses Kenneth Burke's conception of the tragic and comic frames to simultaneously embrace the open and closed aspects of the apocalypse. Yes, laughter provides a safety valve for the aggression we feel toward the members of the sect for their apparently complete lack of basic common sense, but it also helps us accept the enormity of the end-times that await us all. Heaven's Gate didn't shrink from this reality; they embraced The End. The headline of their suicidal home page in bold print announced [italics added]: "Red Alert -- Hale-Bopp brings closure to Heaven's Gate . . . . "

What is it about these people, their chosen end, and what they believed and practiced that touched a common chord? Why were we so eager to dismiss them out of hand?[6] To what can we attribute their thorough alienation, I wondered. After all, while many of us thought that Hale-Bopp was memorably spectacular, few were inclined to read the comet as an omen -- or did we? And do we today view Applegate's followers less as flesh-and-blood people with whom we might feel a sympathetic human connection than as representatives of dangerous cults, as signs of the coming millennium, and not least of all, as a case-in-point of what's wrong with cyberculture or, conversely, how the media typifies cyberculture?



Who Were Heaven's Gate?

Higher Source is the sect's Web presence business. Clients included the San Diego Polo Club, a mail-order music catalog purveying early Madonna, and a New Age Christian company specializing in inspirational messages (see Keep the Faith's statement on Heaven's Gate).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The facts are well known. The group lived together in a large immaculate house in Rancho Santa Fe, a wealthy community in San Diego. On March 26, 1997, the bodies of 21 women and 18 men, ranging in age from 26-72, were discovered in various stages of decomposition. Several days before, they had ingested applesauce or pudding laced with barbiturates and a shot of vodka, and they had submitted to suffocation from plastic bags placed over their heads. They were identically dressed in unisex black shirts, pants, and Nikes, and had purple shrouds placed across their faces. Many of the men had been castrated. Nevertheless still frustrated with their bodies, they chose to leave their "earthly containers" behind in San Diego to join aliens who would take them to the Next Level with a newly embodied life. The extraterrestrials were believed to reside in a starship traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet.

Much more than a Net cult, Heaven's Gate was a UFO cult. Marshall Herff Applewhite, known as "Do" (formerly "Bo"), and Bonnie Lu Nettles, known as "Ti" (formerly "Peep"), met in Texas and formed Heaven's Gate in the early 1970s.[7]  The group settled in the Southwest where they lived in seclusion, eventually attracting as many as 1000 followers [(Niebuhr, March 28, 1997)]. Do and Ti preached that they were Christ-like extraterrestrials who had taken human form. As early as 1975, Applewhite and Nettles (who passed on from natural causes in 1985) told of a spaceship that would spirit true believers away toward a higher level of existence [(Phelan, 1976)].  The Two as they called themselves, after the "Two Lampstands" prophesied in the Bible, always drew as much on science fiction as on Biblical prophecy. Their early chronicler, Robert Balch, wrote about the group circa 1975:

Claiming that [a] biblical cloud referred to a UFO, Bo and Peep promised eternal life in the "literal heavens" to anyone willing to devote "100 percent of his total energy" to overcoming his attachments to the human level.  Over a period of six months Bo and Peep recruited over 200 believers, and for a brief time the UFO cult was America's most publicized new religious movement. . . .  Bo was a tall, greying, slightly overweight figure with remarkable stage presence and steel-blue eyes which he could use effectively to captivate an audience.  By all accounts Bo was extremely persuasive.  A few ex-members claimed their minds went blank in his presence, and one man insisted that he saw a vivid image of a UFO the moment Bo touched him on the shoulder.  The experience was so real that even long after defecting, the man continued to believe he had actually put his hand on the spaceship's landing gear [(Balch, 1982,  21-24)].

Heaven's Gate flourished in the Southwest, where UFO sightings have been common since the postwar boom in aviation and the government's use of the region for nuclear testing. UFO mythology resonates strongly in contemporary popular culture. Concerns over the atomic bomb as well as hopes and fears that we aren't alone in the universe have spurred countless Hollywood films and television shows in which beings from outer space warn the people of earth of impending disaster. H.G. Wells in his late phase, notably the apocalyptic The Shape of Things to Come (1933), is a major literary influence. Another well-acknowledged influence is the 1947 UFO sighting and rumored cover-up that took place near the airforce base in Roswell, New Mexico, where some believe two alien starships collided. Located northwest of Las Vegas, the inspiration for last summer's Men in Black is Area 51, thought to be the government's top-secret installation for investigating flying saucers.[8] The members of Heaven's Gate took such science fact and fiction seriously; indeed, they watched The X-Files and Star Trek religiously.[9]

The group recruited with pamphlets and other print publications for two decades before moving to California and actively using the Internet to transmit messages in the mid-1990s. Members of the cult opened a Web consulting business, Higher Source (a name that can be assumed to be intended to evoke both bodily liberation and HTML source codes). Despite what the Net community thought of their work in retrospect, in Southern California they had a reputation strong enough to attract a client list that included the San Diego Polo Club and Kushner-Locke, a Hollywood production company. Their work shows some programming expertise in that they used Java, VRML, audio and video clips, and advanced HTML that many mom-and-pop Web businesses did not provide in late 1996-early 1997. Similarly, Higher Source was ahead of the curve with using meta tags in inventive ways, in their case for evangelical purposes.

Members of the cult believed they were leaving their bodies behind in a chrysalis that would take them to The Evolutionary Level Above Human (TELAH). According to Balch, these beliefs date back to the early period:

Ultimately the Two held out the promise of eternal life at the "Level Above Human."  There . . . their followers would become . . . complete with androgynous bodies forever free of disease, decay, and death.  Eventually they also might be able to help with a harvest in some distant part of the universe, or even, like Jesus and the Two, "do the Christ trip" on another garden [(Balch, 1982,  27)].

From the beginning, then, the group made plans to leave this planet and their bodies, which they called "shells" and "vehicles," for new life in a more evolved corner of the universe. The sign they were waiting for came with Hale-Bopp and its ghostly companion vehicle.

On Nov. 14, 1996, Houston-based amateur astronomer Chuck Shramek phoned Art Bell's "Coast to Coast" to say that he had taken a photograph of a mysterious object traveling behind Hale-Bopp.[10] Art Bell's popular radio program discusses matters of interest to the UFO community.  The next night a guest on Bell's show, Courtney Brown, director of the Farsight Institute in Atlanta, asserted that three professional psychics associated with his organization had detected the companion vehicle and found it to be inhabited by extraterrestrials. Although there are conflicting reports as to whether Shramek's call was intended as a hoax or was simply a mistake, the sighting of Hale-Mary, as the companion spaceship came to be known, has been widely attributed to have been enough to break Heaven's Gate's holding pattern and to have perhaps triggered the 39 cult members' exit from their mortal containers. O'Leary is among those who point out that the "suicide of the Heaven's Gate sect was timed to coincide with the nearest approach to Earth of the comet Hale-Bopp -- a celestial event that, like many comets throughout history, has been greeted in apocalyptic circles as a harbinger of cosmic change" [(O'Leary, April 1997)].

There is no question that when first reporting the Rancho Santa Fe suicides, the press acted irresponsibly by hastily pointing the finger at the Net although many factors influenced the decision of Applewhite and his followers to end their lives. And the follow-up coverage was never given the prominence of the first few days in which the Net was implicated by the association with UFOs and cult mania. The general public probably still associates Heaven's Gate with the Net and thinks that the Rancho Santa Fe suicides somehow happened because the cult members spent too much time in spooky cyberspace.

The mass media based broad assumptions about the group on the "fact" that they were part of the online community and therefore were taken to be representative of cyberculture.  Whether we accept that premise or consider the Heaven's Gate cult members' connection with the Internet to be tenuous at best -- as just another medium they used for proselytizing if also for commerce -- there is nothing to be lost by examining the online evidence, even if it's not difficult to see that the blame, if any, for their deaths should be shared. In addition to bringing out the significance of celestial influences, O'Leary notes, "Heaven's Gate gives a new and terrifying significance to previously innocuous media products which had long enjoyed what are commonly, and unthinkingly, referred to as 'cult followings': the 'X-Files,' 'Star Trek,' and 'Star Wars'" [(O'Leary, April 1997)]. Perhaps the Net encourages pop idolatry. Perhaps the Net encourages addictive behavior. Perhaps any number of assumptions, which is all they can be without examining the evidence first-hand. In the hope that it might be illuminating to explore the ways in which the members of the sect were typical or atypical of the Net and its virtual community, a consideration of the Heaven's Gate Website is in order.



Decoding the Code

The Heaven's Gate Website contains "secret codes" used as keywords for search engines and for proselytizing purposes. To see these codes hidden within the meta tag, click on the graphic and display the source code of the cult's home page on your browser. With Netscape, choose View on the menu bar, then Document Source. The words excerpted below appear behind the top and bottom of most pages on the site.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Much has been made of the liberatory potential of hypertext, of its undoing and decentering of the author, authority, and linearity itself [(e.g., Bolter, 1990; Malthrop, 1991; Landow, 1992; Lanham, 1993; Gaggi, 1997)]. The World Wide Web, however, offers other avenues of exploration. Unlike how we interpret the printed word, with the Web we aren't restricted to the foregrounded text since we can look beneath to see what's embedded in the computer code or literal subtext. We can, in other words, decode the code or do a digital deconstruction of pages written in HTML to uncover what they reveal or suggest. As it so happens, the material below the surface of the Heaven's Gate pages is unusually rich.

Nevertheless, in terms of intentionality, the subtext of the Heaven's Gate pages is every bit as deliberate as the messages that might otherwise be considered the "preferred reading" [(Hall, 1980)]. Already a subculture in the sense of being a cult, Applewhite's followers were cannily in control of their messages on several levels although obviously their audience reception could not be prescribed [(Hebdige, 1979; Fish, 1980; Radway, 1984; Fiske, 1989)]. It's difficult to accept the cynical view that Heaven's Gate might've staged their suicides for laughs or as a publicity stunt. Although Heaven's Gate's suicide page is surely one of the best read open letters to the Net community, its message has proven to be largely incomprehensible despite its intratextual redundancy.[11] Hale-Bopp did not bring closure to Heaven's Gate.

Access the home page of the Heaven's Gate site and view the source code.[12] (If your browser is Netscape, go to the menu bar, choose View and then select Document Source). At the top and bottom is text otherwise hidden from view contained within the meta tag (a.k.a. <meta>). The meta tag is used by some people making Web pages, particularly commercial sites, to supply information for search engines. Some search engines, such as AltaVista and Infoseek, gather information by pulling up the first few lines of code from a file. The reasoning goes that if you want your site to float to the top when a user does a search, you stand a better chance of being found if you control what words the search engine finds. Just as a user chooses keywords when running a search query, you as the Web page designer can help things along by providing keywords to match the expected query.

This is fine in principal, but Heaven's Gate took keywording and developed it to an unusual degree. They glutted search engines in a form of spamming or sending out junk mail on the Internet. Using the meta tag this way is considered poor Netiquette, or bad manners online and an improper use of bandwidth.[13] But the group's use is consistent with how they used other media. Like many evangelical groups eager to spread their message, they used direct mail techniques, broadcast and video, posters, books, pamphlets, and word of mouth. Heaven's Gate's use of the meta tag is in keeping with their media suffusion. It's worth pointing out, however, that just as most of us in the general public don't completely welcome unsolicited mail, the cult's "spamdexing" was frowned on by what we can consider to be the Net community. Their misuse of HTML put the cult at odds with the accepted practices of the Net rather than in accord. Furthermore, Heaven's Gate not only placed these meta tags at the top of their pages, they also ran them along the bottom for reasons that will be discussed shortly but that serve little practical purpose in terms of search engines.

Advertisement

When we examine the meta tag at the top of the Heaven's Gate home page, the first information that comes to view is an advertisement that was posted to a wide variety of newsgroups:

Heaven's Gate

How and When the Door to the Physical Kingdom Level Above Human May Be Entered
Organized Religions Are Killers of Souls
UFOs and Space Aliens -- Sorting Good from Bad
Final Warning for Possible Survivors

-- www.heavensgate.com (Heaven's Gate)
The recruitment ad lays out the four basic tenets of Applewhite's teachings:

That the physical body can be left behind for TELAH in which the inviolate spirit will live on at a higher evolutionary level,
That traditional religion is untrustworthy,
That escape is forthcoming through alien abduction, and
That this is the final warning.
The latter was a common theme following the death of Nettles. The ending of her life from cancer instead of from alien abduction proved difficult to explain to the faithful. Wojcik notes that after Nettles' death Heaven's Gate disappeared for nearly a decade until May 27, 1993, when they "placed an ad in USA Today entitled 'UFO Cult Resurfaces with Final Offer,' which declared that societal institutions and mainstream religions are controlled by a conspiracy involving Satan" [(Wojcik, 1997, 182)]. When they re-emerged, it was in crisis mode.

Heaven's Gate was a doomsday cult with a predilection for conspiracy theory, views they vigorously disseminated. Sixty-two of the group's Usenet postings from rep@heavensgate.com, ranging from alt.bible.prophecy to alt.blasphemy that date from mid-1996, can be accessed through Deja News. The Washington Post maintains a large collection of "Heaven's Gate" Documents, including videotapes and advertisements such as the USA Today ad that cost nearly $30,000 [(Bayles & O'Driscoll, March 28, 1997)]. The Heaven's Gate Manifesto,"Time to Die for God?," which was posted to a number of newsgroups, can be found on the Pathfinder site. Earlier in 1995, they posted their philosophies on the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL), but discontinued after being flamed by members [(Guglielmo, March 31, 1997)].

The Heaven's Gate group's cross-posting did not endear them to the Net community. Indeed, the cult can be considered guilty of deviating from at least the first five of what [(McLaughlin, Osborne, & Smith, 1995)] have defined as the seven "Standards of Conduct on Usenet." However, it seems as though Heaven's Gate never felt an obligation to observe the tacit rules of the Net; rather, it was the Net community that was supposed to come around. There is nothing in their literature and the interviews with surviving cult members to support the idea that they felt part of cyberculture or that the Internet was anything more than a digital bulletin board on which to affix their messages. The communal joy of connecting, sharing, flaming, ranting that many people associate with what it means to be online apparently was not part of the cult members' experience or interests. In other words, there was no interactivity. Heaven's Gate's messages are one-way, authoritarian. Applewhite, presumably, talks at the world, preaching, proselytizing. Submission is the expected response, not dialogue. In "'Un-Homey' Potential in the Public Discourse of Heaven's Gate," Robert Glenn Howard notes:

The Heaven's Gate group's newsgroup "recruitment" communications display a static and deterministic rhetoric. Railing against the bodily manifestations of human beings, they developed a belief set that allowed them to view suicide as a positive experience. This attitude failed to effect large groups of individuals on the Internet because, for the most part, their rhetoric failed to attempt any sort of persuasion. In their e-mail posts, they made no real attempt to persuade anyone of anything. They simply dogmatically asserted their version of the truth [(Howard, 1997, 51)].

Nor does Heaven's Gate seem to have experienced the medium as a new religious agora. The potential for participatory affirmation called "the ritual view of communication" by [(James W. Carey, 1975)] and celebrated by those who write on the Internet's interfaith networking potential [(Davis, 1995; Brasher, 1996; O'Leary, 1996; Cobb, 1998, in press)] similarly wasn't valued by Heaven's Gate. Posting information on the Net doesn't seem to have been any more meaningful to the members of the cult than buying a newspaper ad, although obviously the Net was quite a bit less expensive. The group wasn't "of" the Net from lack of interest as well as ostracism, which likely fed each other. Heaven's Gate was alienated from the virtual community that they in turn alienated by failing to observe the social contract.

Keywords

The next set of words within the meta tag is a list of keywords used for search engines. Strung together in this form, the keywords resemble chanting. If you scroll to the bottom of the source code, you'll see two more lists, the first in a meta tag, the other colored black so that it isn't visible against the background. On the home page, they run behind the foregrounded text in the blank space at the bottom (below the footer and information on how to order Applewhite's book). The lists are provided below:

Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming angels angels angels angels angels angels angels angels angels angels end end times times end times end times end times end times end times end times end times end times end times.
  
Key Words: (for search engines) 144,000, Abductees, Agnostic, Alien, Allah, Alternative, Angels, Antichrist, Apocalypse, Armageddon, Ascension, Atheist, Awakening, Away Team, Beyond Human, Blasphemy, Boddhisattva, Book of Revelation, Buddha, Channeling, Children of God, Christ, Christ's Teachings, Consciousness, Contactees, Corruption, Creation, Death, Discarnate, Discarnates, Disciple, Disciples, Disinformation, Dying, Ecumenical, End of the Age, End of the World, Eternal Life, Eunuch, Evolution, Evolutionary, Extraterrestrial, Freedom, Fulfilling Prophecy, Genderless, Glorified Body, God, God's Children, God's Chosen, God's Heaven, God's Laws, God's Son, Guru, Harvest Time, He's Back, Heaven, Heaven's Gate, Heavenly Kingdom, Higher Consciousness, His Church, Human Metamorphosis, Human Spirit, Implant, Incarnation, Interfaith, Jesus, Jesus' Return, Jesus' Teaching, Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven, Krishna Consciousness, Lamb of God, Last Days, Level Above Human, Life After Death, Luciferian, Luciferians, Meditation, Members of the Next Level, Messiah, Metamorphosis, Metaphysical, Millennium, Misin
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发表于 2004-7-26 10:42:41 |只看该作者

Peoples Temple

Jonestown


Examining the Peoples Temple




  



Left: Jim Jones with Councilman Lindsay (http://cyberscope.com/deceptor/photos.htm)

Right: 914 dead (http://www.pathfinder.com/time/reports/cult/killer2.html)

BEFORE YOU SCROLL:

We have conceived of the Peoples Temple as a reflective cultural marker. We designed this Web page to emphasize the relationship between the Jonestown cult and the culture out of which it grew. When following our links to other sites, keep this in mind. When following the link to the "Cold War," for example, consider why a new religion such as the Peoples Temple might have emerged as a response to the existing Cold War environment. Ask yourself, "How does this cult reflect and/or react to these more general cultural instances?"

It is extremely important, however, to constantly remind yourself of the decontextualizing nature of the Internet. Information exists on the 'Net outside of existing scholarly structures. You must be MORE critical of what you find on the 'Net, always asking, "Who put this here?, Can I be sure of that?, Why did that person put this here?, What did they intend for me to think?, What does this mean?, How am I differently affected by images and texts that I get off a computer screen than those that I find in books or journals?, Can this information from the 'Net be used in good conscience?," and so on.

If our attempt at understanding Jonestown as a cultural reflector fails, it will probably be because we were unable to find the right information on the 'Net: we did not have the time to ask enough questions about each link that we have provided. We do not have the computer skill necessary to shorten the topical searches (to find concise information about a specific issue quickly). We freely admit that most of the links provided represent the first interesting site to appear in response to a given keyword search such as "counterculture" in Yahoo, Alta Vista, and cetera.

We have provided a short bibliography of pertinent texts at the end of the page. We encourage you, as you find more and more of your "facts" on the World Wide Web not to forget about the beauty and usefulness of books.







The History of Jonestown

In 1978, 913 followers of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple committed a mass suicide in northern Guyana at a site called, Jonestown. The charismatic leader of Jonestown, was Jim Jones, a preacher who set up the Peoples Temple in San Francisco and ultimately moved his followers to a more clandestine site in Guyana. While Jones was preaching in San Francisco, he helped out many local and even national campaigns and was seen as a healer which much power in the community. However, once he had all of his members in Jonestown, his personality changed. Away from the constraints of American soil, Jonestown and its members became very cultish. Jones heightened regulations on his followers and their engagement to the sect. Eventually, Jones began to claim his true divinity. "Jones, for example now claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus, as well as Ikhnaton, Buddha, Lenin, and Father Divine."(Galanter, 1989) Paranoia and complete control became Jones' personality, once he obtained such a close knit group. Jones began to stage rehearsals of his eventual mass suicide plan that he would eventually enact. These drills, called "white nights" began with sirens going off in the middle of the night and none of the members of Jonestown would know if it was real or not. "A mass meeting would ensue... we would be told that the jungle was swarming with mercenaries... we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told."(Galanter, 1989)

In 1978, U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan went to Jonestown to investigate supposed abuses by the People's Temple onto its members. After staying for a day, Ryan tried to leave, taking four of the cult members who had decided to defect. Realizing this, Jones ordered them killed, as was done. Sensing that his utopia in the jungle would surely come to an end after word got back to the states about Ryan; Jones decide to put his suicide plan into action. Telling his subjects that it was a "revolutionary death," he had a large quantity of fruit punch laced with cyanide prepared. After making all 276 children at Jonestown drink the punch, all the adults proceeded. In the end, after Jones apparently killed himself with a gunshot to the head, 914 people had died.







Timeline of the Peoples Temple

1956- Peoples Temple founded in Indianapolis as an integrated church combining evangelical, enthusiastic religion and loosely socialist politics. Jim Jones, the founder and pastor of the church, preformed healings which attracted many members. The congregation was predominately black.

1960- Jim Jones was appointed director of the Indianapolis human rights commission.

1961- The Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church, as it came to be called, became a part of the Disciples of Christ. Jones was ordained by that faith in 1964.

1965- Jones moved the Temple's headquarters to Ukiah, California, a city near San Francisco which he thought would be a safe haven in case of a nuclear war.

1967-1977

The Peoples Temple attracted more members and much favorable coverage in the press and from the political establishment as Jones himself and the Temple in general became more active in the community. Jones was even appointed to the San Francisco Housing Authority.

It was also during this time that some questions were raised by people outside of the group as to possible human rights violations within the group. the organization of concerned relatives was formed in response to reports of beatings and other punishments afflicted on members by Jones and the Temple's leaders.

It was also during this time that Jones decided to move his congregation to Guyana.

1978- By the end of 1977, more that 900 Temple members were in residence at the commune in Guyana. At the end of the day, November 18, 1978, 914 members had committed suicide.





THE CONDITIONS OF POSSIBILITY: Why the Peoples Temple?

Martin Heidegger theorized that cultural truths are revealed only when specific cultural manifestations cease to work properly. He called this concept "breakdown." The larger meanings of culture itself, according to this understanding, are primarily invisible to those within culture until part of it breaks down. An aberrant occurrence or anomaly, as referred to by Mary Douglas, represents such a breakdown. In turn, the development of new religions and cults exemplify Douglas's idea of anomaly.

The Peoples Temple cult, and specifically the mass suicide of so many of its members, represents an anomaly, and therefore a breakdown, in the culture of mid-twentieth century America. An examination of the development and eventual self-destruction of the Peoples Temple should shed light on that culture. The Jonestown cult was born of that culture and in turn reflects back upon it, that is, the Peoples Temple was effected (created) by mainstream American culture of its time and in turn affected that same culture.

A complete examination into the events and meanings of the Jonestown cult would entail leafing through many pages of letters and documents, listening to taped conversations, and researching the histories of each of that cults followers. In addition, the theories of any of scores of social theorists, philosophers, psychologists, scholars of religion, and cetera would no doubt be pertinent to a complete understanding of the anomaly of Jonestown and the culture that spawned it. The compilers of this site do not have the resources nor the theoretical knowledge to profess to such a venture. In fact, it would be impossible for us to claim a complete understanding of such a complex event, even with an encyclopedic knowledge of all world thought. Our goal in the compilation of this site is to encourage you to consider the history of Jonestown in light of the mainstream culture around it. If Jim Jones's concept of revolutionary suicide is to be affective on any level it is necessary that we conceive of this (apparent) anomaly as an indicator of problems within society as a whole. Consider the implications of Jonestown as regarding its broader historical era as well as our contemporary world. Remember that those who found refuge in the Temple were seeking, as we all do, a place within a world they felt ill-equipt to understand. These Temple members were not others; they were us.

It is important to conceive, first and foremost, of the cultural climate into which (and out of which) the Jonestown cult arose. Jones and his followers were products of their culture at the same time that they were producers of a reactant culture (namely, the Peoples Temple). That said, let us consider the era and the area out of which and into which Jim Jones and his Temple were born:

-mid twentieth century, specifically 1960s, United States

-mid-west (Indianapolis, IN was the home base of the KKK)

-San Francisco

-Guyana

-Cold War

-rampant fear of nuclear destruction in the wake of WWII

-Civil Rights movement in all its guises

-mature capitalism, vastly differentiated income distribution

-general climate of unrest, change, grassroots movements,counter culture

-increased interest in non-Western religious models

-rise of new religions and followers of new leaders preaching in contemporary language (like Father Divine and his Peace Mission)

-recognition that there were millions of Americans (specifically blacks) who did not necessarily feel that they belonged in the American culture, who felt they had been omitted from the American dream

This list could go on forever but we have tried to include the most salient environmental clues necessary for an understanding of the Peoples Temple.

The line of the Peoples Temple spoke directly to most of these cultural markers. Jones's vision was one of racial and economic equality. His combination of communalism (which he differentiated from communism), multi-racialism, and faith, as well as his political activism within the existing order drew a group of followers which contrasts "typical" cult members. Those who joined the Peoples Temple were primarily older blacks. In her book, Making Sense of the Jonestown Suicides, Judith Weightman suggests that the Temple members may have seen the new religion as a viable option to the more radical counter-culture and anti-racist movements (such as the Black Panthers) that seemed to be cropping up in greater and greater numbers at that time.

The Peoples Temple also spoke to the fear of Red communism and nuclear war that the Cold War climate had instilled in so many Americans. Jones preached that Temple members would be safe from WWIII. In fact, his move of the Temple headquarters from Indiana to northern California was particularly fueled by the desire to be in the safest possible location should nuclear war erupt. Also, the eventual move to Guyana was certainly influenced by these fears.





WHY SUICIDE?

An examination of the Temple cannot omit the question of why so many folks would commit suicide in the name of their new faith (or at the behest of a single man). Jones, apparently, saw the suicide as a revolutionary act, and in the last years of the Temple, an emphasis on religious ideas, particularly those of mainstream Christianity, was replaced by an emphasis on the political nature of the group. Weightman discusses the concept of revolutionary suicide in greater depth in her book than we can here. However it is important to recognize that revolutionary suicide is not a concept that can be found in the writings of Karl Marx. Suicide cannot be revolutionary for Marx because suicide, particularly en masse, by an oppressed people effectively eliminates the very people who would be revolting. The self inflicted deaths of the revolutionaries eliminates the need for revolution and the means of production remain in the hands of the oppressors. Of course, Marx, as a materialist, sees the goals of life as entirely tied to this world, this life. The Peoples Temple members, as religious people, believed in some notion of an after-life.

That stated, is there another explanation for the suicides? Emil Durkheim's concept of "altruistic suicide" is a good match. In this classification of suicide, those who kill themselves feel more closely tied to a sub-group than to mainstream society and their "basis for existence seems situated beyond life itself" (Durkheim,Lemert 90).

Again, Weightman probes deeply into the question of precisely why 913 people would terminate their own lives and her book includes a discussion of the resocialization of the Temple members. Also, Jonathan Smith, in Imagining Religion, sheds some light on this primary problem by placing the Peoples Temple into the larger framework of Religious Tradition. Smith compares the Peoples Temple to the Dionysic cults of Western antiquity as well as to the cargo cults in the New Hebrides Islands in this century.





WHY FOLLOW JONES?

The question of why Jim Jones specifically should decide he had the answers to any of life's questions is one we cannot answer. Since Jones is dead, we cannot psychoanalyze him, we can only speculate. Along these same lines, a Freudian interpretation of the Peoples Temple and Jones is possible. We could make suppositions about the cult members and their relationships to their parents and their consequent search for a father figure and their consequent killing of their father, for example. In fact, one of us (J.K-N.) has written a paper on the relationship between the Jonestown cult and the guru model of religion, which is quite similar to a Freudian interpretation. We have consciously chosen to leave a detailed Freudian examination out of this page, however, because in our opinion it has limited value in an examination of the relationship between the Peoples Temple and the culture out of which it grew.

We believe that Jones was able to articulate a response to mainstream culture which resounded eloquently in the ears of his followers. The question to be answered is: "Why did these particular people feel alienated from their culture, and what was it in Jones's preachings that drew them to the Peoples Temple?" We hope that this Web page can help in the answering of that question.
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发表于 2004-7-26 11:12:56 |只看该作者
哈哈,这么多好东东,顶

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发表于 2004-7-26 13:25:05 |只看该作者
不错的东东,顶!!!
看开些,一切都会过去!

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发表于 2004-7-26 13:52:54 |只看该作者
so looooooooooooong
up~~~

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发表于 2004-7-27 11:26:47 |只看该作者
顶,我已前总用othordox(东正教),不知算不算邪教,
~~by the way,我235,也用了邪教~~

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RE: [分享]世界六大邪教 [修改]

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